How ambitious are you?

Inês Santos Silva
2 min readMay 18, 2022

This week, I start reading the book “Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World” by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross. I’m a big fan of Tyler’s books (have read a few) and of his blog Marginal Revolution.

In the book, Tyler and Daniel mention several great questions that they like to ask potential candidates and startup founders. One of my favorites is “What is it you do to practice that is analogous to how a pianist practices scales?”.

Because of the book launch, Tyler and Daniel were interviewed by Matt Clifford and asked the same questions they usually ask candidates. I highly recommend you to listen to the podcast.

Often I learn more from the questions than from the answers and this is a great example. Since Monday, I’ve been pondering on my answers to the following questions and trying to understand what they say about me:

  • What is it you do to practice that is analogous to how a pianist practices scales?
  • How ambitious are you? / How successful do you want to be?
  • What subreddits or blogs do you read?
  • What is your most absurd belief?
  • What is one mainstream or consensus view that you wholeheartedly agree with?

Do you have great answers to these questions? Curious to hear your thoughts!

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Inês Santos Silva

Ecosystems Builder | Gender Equality | Future of Work. Working in the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship and social good. http://inessilva.me